In two separate rulings, a federal judge in Alabama struck down the state’s discriminatory marriage ban, prompting a brazenly political and deeply misguided response from the Chief Justice of Alabama’s highest court.

It’s election season, and if you live in one of the 39 states that elect judges, you may have seen one of those ‘soft on crime’ TV ads claiming that a judicial candidate “sides with child predators,” “is sympathetic to rapists” or “helped free a terrorist.”

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied review of decisions in favor of the freedom to marry from the Seventh Circuit, Fourth Circuit and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeal. As a result same-sex couples in those five more states -- Indiana, Wisconsin, Virginia, Utah and Oklahoma -- began to marry!

On May 9, 2014, Judge Chris Piazza, a state trial court judge in Arkansas, ruled that the state’s statutory and constitutional bans prohibiting marriage for same-sex couples violated the constitution of the United States, and had to be struck down.

Today, the U.S. Senate made judicial history by confirming Darrin Gayles to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida and Staci Yandle to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, marking the first time that two openly gay judicial nominees have been confirmed to the federal bench on the same day.

As a gubernatorial candidate, Governor Christie often vowed he would reshape the “activist” New Jersey Supreme Court. In 2009, he stated: "I will remake the court and I will remake it in this one simple principle.

Immediately after U.S. District Court Judge Orlando Garcia struck down Texas’ discriminatory ban denying same-sex couples the freedom to marry, Texas Governor Rick Perry attacked the ruling in the statement released by his office.